Nyctophobia
by Couragefan09
Summary: The end is near! Repent your sins! Something horrible is coming and it embodies the dark with which everyone fears on some primal level. The coming end may not be preventable but maybe it can be delayed. Computer is certainly not going to let something like the birth of a Cthulhu like entity ruin his day. All you need is some aggressive parenting!


A/N: This story is heavily influenced by an older fic I once co authored called What The Soul Holds. It pretty much only resembles the old story in minor ways so I can't really say that it's a rewrite.

Nyctophobia

Chapter One: The Vision

Computer was awoken by a strange smell.

He was so tired that he did not notice, or even care. He didn't even noticed that a computer shouldn't be smelling anything in the first place. Despite his sleepiness, a terrible sense of foreboding was slowly dragging him out of his drowsy stupor. The strange smell was starting to annoy him and he couldn't help but wonder how he had managed to fall asleep in the first place.

_'So much for getting my nap!'_ He thought angrily. He wasn't even aware of the fact that his thoughts were almost not his own.

It was at that moment when it hit him.

He could not smell! He could not sleep either! He was a machine! Not some stupid flesh creature! He opened his eyes. Wait...when did he get eyes? Confusion rolled through him but his mind was still far too fuzzy to make any sense of this.

He looked around. He was in a chicken coop, which explained the strange smell. He knew through memories that were not his own that this was the chicken coop the twit and his family...he halted unable finish that thought. Something was not right.

He glanced down and found himself staring at fuchsia paws. He moved them closer to his face.

_'Courage?' _He thought.

Everything suddenly made sense. He was seeing the world through Courage's eyes. But for what reason? The sense of looming terror was growing even stronger and he was getting a powerful urge to go find Eustace and Muriel.

_'Something bad is about to happen! I need to find them before it's too late!' _He thought, still half asleep and not aware that his wayward thoughts were hijacking his mind.

He jumped down from the spot he had been laying and moved closer to the door. The chickens were nowhere to be found and he had a bad feeling that there was a reason for that. Looking outside he could see the landscape bathed in an eerie crimson red. The sky looked unusual, it might have passed for a particularly pretty sunset but there was something about it that just told you on an instinctual level that this was not normal.

Even for Nowhere he knew that it was way too quiet. The silence only made his heart race faster. Once more the urge to find Muriel and Eustace almost overwhelmed him. Part of him was almost too afraid to move. He got the sense that if he so much as twitched a muscle the world around him would explode. He could feel the dog's body trembling with fear that was not all his own.

With almost no warning there was a loud **BOOM**, whichcrashed across the land like a bomb had just gone off. He almost collapsed under the oppressing sound. It was so loud that it was almost like being struck by a giant wave. It was sound of a bell, a bell that had to be so large that it could shake the entire earth with it's sound.

He waited for the sound to pass, paralyzed by the fear being brought on by the dog's own emotions. He was being crushed by a sense of impending horror that was not his own. But _why?_ What was happening to make Courage, and by extension, himself, so deeply afraid?

Something wet struck him between the eyes. He raised a paw to touch it. He brought his fingers down and saw that they were stained with something red.

It was blood.

Several more drops began to fall and he retreaded back into the chicken coop to get away. He stood there trembling, wanting nothing more than to just bury his head into a pillow and forget that this was all happening. The blood rain was slowly becoming a downpour. The earth seemed to refuse this unnatural gift and massive puddles were beginning to form because of it.

He needed to find Muriel. Nothing else mattered. He just needed to find Muriel!

He decided that he was going to brave this hellish rain. If he didn't go now, he'd lose his chance to leave all together. All he cared about was getting to Muriel, nothing else mattered.

Steeling his non-existent courage, he ran out into the monstrous downpour. The blood was surprisingly thick and very difficult to move through. It was already pooling up high enough for him to have to slosh through it like half melted snow. The continuous downpour was covering his fur in the nasty stuff and the terrible smell was beginning to assault his senses.

He almost couldn't continue because of the sheer smell. It was like he was trekking through rotten meat. The smell was almost overwhelming, it seemed to drag you down into the blood itself with every single breath. It took a sheer force of will not to gag or throw up as he moved forward.

Finally, he made it to the porch, and not a moment to soon. Another bell tolled, once again rolling across the world with another gigantic boom. It's mournful, crushing sound almost sent him to his knees a second time. He watched as this time pale, rotting hands emerged from the thick layer of blood. They clawed at the sky with a vicious reverence as though they had not seen the sun in all an eternity.

Even without Courage's fear fueling him, Computer felt terror like he had never felt before. Not much normally phased him, but this...this was a true nightmare come to life. Several hands almost seemed to be inviting him back into the blood. He had to fight the urge to shake his head at them as if they could actually see him.

The screaming started almost immediately. Thousands of voices began screaming out in sheer agony. The sound was like listening to nails on a chalk board. He ripped at his ears trying to drown the awful sound out. He wrenched the door open with incredible force and then slammed it shut without so much as a glance backwards.

He slid down the doorway and began panting with terror. The screams outside could still be heard but at least now there was a wall between him and the nightmare outside.

The pattering of the blood rain was the only thing echoing through the deathly silent house. He slowly managed to compose himself and stood back up.

Muriel, where was Muriel? He glanced around the living room, half expecting her to be there. He ran into the kitchen but she was not there either. Where could she have gone? He did not dare go into the basement with the land flooding like it was. He had no plans of going swimming in a basement filling up with blood...

He made his way over to the stairs and began climbing them as fast as he could. The bathroom upstairs was devoid of any human presence. The only place left she could be was either the bedroom, attic, or...if he really had to, the basement. He clamored over to the bedroom. If she was likely to be anywhere, it would be there.

What he found in the bedroom was not what he had been expecting. The sight that met him left the Courage part of his mind screaming out in sheer terror. The dog's desperate cries joined in with the cacophony just outside. Fighting back the growing sorrow within the dog's mind, he regained control over his body and backed out of the room.

Muriel and Eustace were dead. Their bodies were gray, bloated monster seemingly having been left out to rot for weeks. Maggots had been poring from their eyeless sockets. Their arms had been sticking out up in the air. There mouths were open in a soundless scream. It was like their deaths had been catered to just what Courage did not want to see. They looked just like the screaming dead waiting for him outside...

Hopelessness and a realization that this was all over ran through Courage's mind. Why fight it? He couldn't fight anyway. It would all be over soon, plus...

A thought belonging to Computer interrupted Courage's steady stream of thoughts. He wanted to go see himself. He wanted to go up into the attic and see himself. Deep down he was convinced that this needed to happen. This desire seemed to override Courage's side of his mind. He was free to do as he pleased. The Courage side of himself had all but given up anyway.

He moved across the hall and up into the attic. Courage's presence and control over his body seemed to fade completely. He moved slowly across the attic, unsure of what he would find. Would he be the computer equivalent of what had happened to Muriel and Eustace?

No, this was not the case...

_'What?' _He asked himself.

He was sitting there, perfectly normal. His screen had gone a deep, crimson red and a symbol was emblazoned upon the screen in a strange fiery yellow.

That symbol...

He'd seen it many times before. He hated looking at it. It was circle with a jagged line cut through it. Seeing it made his heart beat faster more so than anything he'd seen during this sick and twisted scenario. It reminded him of something, something horrible. Something he felt like he should know, but didn't.

The bells began to toll again, this time they did not stop. The reverberating sound began to shake the ground like an earthquake. He moved closer to the window. Something was coming, he knew it. He had to see what it was. He _needed _to see this.

The sky was cracking open like an egg. The screams of the dead below began to change. They were now all crying out in terror. It was a long endless sound that somehow seemed to be even worse than the screaming.

_'It's coming!' _He realized, his eyes widening.

_What_ was coming, he didn't know, but he knew it was there. Something was just beyond the wall that was the sky, and it was slowly breaking through.

The cracks grew more numerous. He _needed _to see this, for all the life of him he needed to see this. Every bit of himself was screaming out to look upon whatever was coming through. It was as though this was the most important part of his entire existence, that he literally existed just to bear witness this moment.

Finally...the sky crumbled away, leaving a massive void in its wake. The cries of terror grew even more louder. Their sound was filling his mind and body with their terror.

It was coming through...it was here...it was...

**SYSTEM START UP INITIATED**

Without missing a single beat, the scene before Computer vanished. The void in the sky was gone and in its place was Courage's stupid face looking up at him through the screen.

It's happened again, he realized. It took a moment to reorient himself. He often became disoriented after an 'episode' and it couldn't be helped.

Still half dazed he couldn't ignore Courage pounding away mercilessly at his keyboard. He was going on and on about something stupid. Man eating french fries? Oh for the love of...

He quickly set the stupid twit straight on how to conquer evil fast food, he didn't even bother berating him about it. He just wanted that idiot gone so he could think about what had just happened.

This new episode left him confounded. Never before had he...

Courage typed something else in. He had to resist the urge to want to beat the twit over his head for interrupting his thoughts again. Not that he could actually beat the dog over the head or anything, but it was a nice thing to fantasize about.

"Just eat them! You'll put on a few pounds, who cares!" He said to the dog, desperately growing impatient.

_Finally _with that out of the way, the twit left. He could finally think about what had just transpired without anyone interrupting him.

For as long as he knew, he had always had these dreams. No, they were not dreams because he could not really dream. They were more like vision and they often happened while he was awake too.

Always it was the same. He'd see that strange apocalyptic event through the eyes of different people. Over and over again he'd play out their final moments. It was always the same, the blood rain, the screaming, the _thing _lurking just beyond his vision. This time had been different though. Never before had he seen through the eyes of the twit and his family, and never before had he come across himself while having one of his episodes.

That symbol...

It always showed up in his visions. One way or another, it was always there. Just thinking about it made him feel on edge. He'd looked it up plenty of times but as far as he could tell the symbol had no meaning.

He didn't like this. He'd been overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding lately and his episodes had been getting worse. He initially had tried blowing it off under the belief that he was letting his episodes get the better of him Try as he might, he could not shake his sense of uneasiness, no matter how much he tried. It felt like something bad was about to happen. He worried that the events of his visions might just become reality. It wasn't worth getting paranoid over however. Even if it were about to happen there was nothing he could do about it. If the end was coming, so be it. He couldn't do anything about it, he was just a computer after all.

He couldn't help but get the feeling that meeting himself in his vision for the first time was meant to be something important. That strange sign had been glowing on his screen. There must have been a reason for it. Why was there no information about that sign on the internet? Surely it must have meaning to someone, somewhere.

He sighed inwardly, wishing that he could shake the air of nervousness that had fallen upon him. Something bad was going to happen and he knew it. In his heart of hearts he knew something awful was about to happen. No amount of brushing it off was ever going to stop it.

He brought up his paint program and drew that awful sign out on his screen. He shuddered at the sight of it. It made him think of darkness. Deep, endless darkness. The kind you could get lost in forever. The kind where _anything _could be watching you as you stumbled around but you'd never be able to see the very thing stalking you.

Few things frightened him, but darkness...oh god, darkness. The thought of being trapped in an infinite void of nothingness set his circuits on edge. He could not bear the thought of being left out in the dark. Normal darkness was fine, but a void with no walls or ceiling...no thanks, he could never stand it.

The strange phobia seemed to come from a memory. It was a vague thing, something he was convinced did not actually exist. He had been trapped somewhere. Deep inside an endless darkness. He could not escape no matter how much he tried. He had been left there intentionally. Whoever had put him there had wanted him to be lost forever.

Something else had also been there too, something which had stalked him, something which had seemed to embody the darkness itself. It had chased him, toyed with him, played tricks on him. It had only managed to intensify his fear of the dark. Perhaps the thing had been his fear of the dark personified.

He knew without a doubt that the memory was not real. He had never actually been in a situation like that. Just because it wasn't real, it didn't stop him from being afraid of an infinite darkness, however. He ignored his growing fear and wiped the picture clean. He couldn't bear to look at it anymore.

He'd thought about telling Courage about his episodes plenty of times. He had ultimately decided not to. Courage would just freak out like he always did, and the last thing he wanted was the twit freaking out over something stupid. His visions probably had no grounds in reality, and he was not going to allow himself dwell upon them. If he were to tell the twit, he'd never hear the end of it.

Mentally exhausted, he initiated a shut down procedure. He did not want to think about the visions anymore. These episodes were just a normal part of his life, they'd always been there. There was no point in getting worried about them now.

No amount of fear or foreboding would ever change the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. If something was going to happen then it was just going to have to happen. He could do nothing about it. He was just a normal computer after all...

End Of Chapter


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